The scandal-plagued Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL) has admitted that Jean-Ann Panton, a former employee, contacted the management team of former Olympian Usain Bolt and requested assistance with money to replace the sprint icon’s account, which had run dry and for which the business claimed Panton had full responsibility.
Since two weeks ago, the information has been widely known, but SSL has now verified it. The troubled business also acknowledged that Welljen, a limited liability company, was the owner of Bolt’s account, which was purportedly defrauded of roughly US$13 million or J$2 billion.
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In a recent statement release, SSL claimed its board and management were issuing the public statement only to clarify “in respect of some damaging and widely repeated inaccuracies which suggest, inter alia, that the SSL directors and management sought to dispose of assets in order to frustrate efforts by authorities to take control of same”.
The business said, “This is simply untrue.”
Defining what it claimed to be the facts, SSL stated that it informed the Financial Services Commission (FSC) on January 10 about the “discovery of apparent fraud and of the immediate steps being taken”.
The customer relationship manager was being looked at in regard to the scam, and it mentioned an employee without mentioning Panton.
“The employee was interviewed by our attorneys on January 6 and 7, 2023 in the presence of her attorney and has admitted to wrongdoing. Other interviews are scheduled for the week of January 9, 2023, with known associates”.
According to SSL, it appears that the employee altered and created phony customer papers, such as encashment requests and statements, in an effort to go over the internal rules. It stated that attempts were being made to get the employee to agree to make amends.
“The very next day, January 11, 2023, a representative of …Usain St Leo Bolt visited the offices of Stocks and Securities Limited and indicated that the said employee had turned up at their offices to confess that she had falsified statements provided to them, had stolen money from them and other SSL clients, and was requesting help from Bolt’s management team to repay the clients whose funds she had stolen,” noted in a statement.
Panton’s refusal to confess to defrauding Bolt, as she did for 39 other clients in the staggering fraud estimated to have cost $3 billion and rising, is attributed to two factors, says SSL: (1) She was aware of the intense scrutiny that the Bolt name would bring to bear on her actions; and (2) “amazingly, she, for whatever reason, and despite having admitted to the Bolt management team that …Bolt was among her victims, apparently still believed that she could borrow the money from the Bolt management group to repay the other SSL clients”.
Asserting that, “the very first point at which the company became aware that the fraud affected this client was when the member of the Bolt management team visited SSL’s office, the former employee having omitted any mention of this client in her initial confession,” SSL said that it was unaware of the Bolt account.
The Bolt account did not appear as one of SSL’s high-value clients (those with balances of US$10 million and above), according to a former senior manager who previously informed OBSERVER ONLINE that the whole management team was unaware of it. In addition, unlike those accounts, it did not appear on any audit.
However, according to a statement supplied to Bolt’s team by SSL, as of October 2022, he should have had a balance of a little under US$13 million. His attorneys had given SSL until January 27 to make amends or face legal action, but the deadline has passed with no action being taken.
Bolt’s involvement has caused the SSL scam to become viral; it has been covered by several major and small media outlets worldwide, including the BBC, NBC, and Reuters, among others.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) of the United States and other foreign forensics specialists have also been enlisted by the Jamaican government to assist in exposing what local investigators have described as a scam that has been going on for more than two decades.
When Bolt’s representative visited SSL, “the shock experienced by all was, and remains palpable”,” according to SSL.
“While the company believed that the impact on the first identified 39 clients could be addressed with the cooperation of regulators, it was immediately apparent that the national and indeed, global stature of the last client (Bolt) impacted would likely make a measured and systematic approach to investigation very challenging indeed,” the securities dealer noted.
It is adamant that when it reported the scam to the FSC, it was ignorant that Bolt was an investor through a holding company.
SSL noted that the FSC designated a special investigator and interim management on January 17, while it appointed a trustee on January 16.
SSL further denied assertions that it sought to wind up the corporation in violation of FSC directions, stating that, “practically, the FSC through their temporary manager has had control over the entity so SSL has not been in a position to respond publicly or clarify allegations.”
It stated that the FSC was informed of the trustee’s nomination on January 12 and that talks were still underway.
-Caydion Campbell of Phoenix Restructuring, Advisory and Insolvency Services Enterprise was appointed trustee under the Companies Act of Jamaica effective January 16.
-Caydion Campbell of Phoenix Restructuring, Advisory and Insolvency Services Enterprise was appointed trustee under the Companies Act of Jamaica effective January 16. The directors intended for the trustee to have all of their rights and authority, and they wanted him to be in charge of SSL’s affairs.
-Additionally, it was planned for the trustee and his staff to look into SSL’s operations and perform an independent business review (IBR), among other things, to find out how financially stable it was as of January 16, 2023.
In accordance to the statement, “The purpose of the appointment was not, we repeat, not to wind up the company. Among Mr. Campbell’s key objectives were intended to be to ensure that all necessary conservatory measures were in place over the assets of SSL, as well as to ensure compliance with the enhanced governance protocols as directed by the FSC. It was intended that he would also use the results of the IBR to explore the restructuring and reorganization options that were available to preserve and enhance the value of the business, operations, and undertakings of SSL for the benefit of all its stakeholders.”
